This is a collection of news about border issues, particularly those seen from Arizona and regarding the right to keep and bear arms. Sources often include Mexican media. It's often interesting to see how different the view is from the south.
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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

AZMEX SPECIAL 2 7 -2-12

AZMEX SPECIAL 2 7 FEB 2012

Note: interesting in several aspects.

NPD taps illicit cash to pay for a new stationSuspected drug cash can be used for positive public means once it has been formally forfeited. The Nogales Police Department is trying to collect forfeited cash to help it replace its out-of-date headquarters.

Take, for example, the Nogales Police Department's planned funding method for a new station.

The department, with its 56 uniformed officers and 18 other staffers, says it has outgrown its current digs at City Hall, which were built in 1978 to accommodate 30 people. But when an effort to convince the city council to finance a new station with bond and grant money fell short of support, NPD needed a Plan B.

So now it's turning to another, relatively abundant source of funding in Santa Cruz County, one that doesn't place an additional burden on taxpayers: forfeitures of "dirty" money.

For years, local law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies have relied on cash forfeitures to help pay for things ranging from Little League sponsorships and college scholarships to D.A.R.E. programs, law enforcement vehicles and crime-fighting equipment. And so Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham decided the NPD would crack down on cash smuggling along Interstate 19 to turn his plans for a new station into reality.

With the help of a half-million dollar grant from the state Attorney General's Office, the department has seized close to $1 million in suspected drug trafficking proceeds since Kirkham became chief in January 2010.

But the department's aggressive cash-seizure effort is bypassing traditional channels for cash forfeiture cases in Santa Cruz County. And the county's fund for forfeited cash, which is controlled by County Attorney George Silva, is emptier than usual.

"Right now, my fund is kind of running low, so I'm not doing a lot of donations for youth organizations," Silva said. "It really hurts not to be able to do it, but it's kind of where we're at."

I-19 alliance

In order to search someone's car for cash, Kirkham said, an officer must first stop them for some other violation- say, for example, speeding.

If, while interviewing the person, an officer develops "reasonable suspicion" that there is drug money on board, they can search the vehicle, Kirkham said. The cash is often stashed in secret compartments, he said, and the department has dogs trained to sniff it out.

Eight of the department's officers are certified to work the I-19 Southern Border Alliance program, which targets drug and cash traffickers, Kirkham said. Not only did the state AG's office train the officers how to best spot trafficking procedures, they also helped fund the beefed-up patrol.

The Nogales Police Department landed the $500,000 grant from the office last year, Kirkham said, and has used it to buy equipment and a cash-sniffing canine. A bulk of the grant money, however, goes to the officers, who are paid overtime to work the program.

Kirkham stressed that since the officers are working overtime, the department hasn't skimped on anything to search for cash.

"Our officers are not taken away from their normal duties," Kirkham said. "We continue to respond to calls. We did not lower our staffing in other areas to do this.""We're about at the $1 million mark," Kirkham said of the amount of cash NPD has seized since he became chief, adding that he thinks the department needs between $3 and $5 million to build a new facility.

When asked about concerns that the department's new station would be constructed using once-dirty cash, Kirkham said that he didn't "see the argument.""The more we can get and put into this idea of building a facility alleviates the taxpayers, who would be burdened with more bonds," Kirkham said. "If we can do it without the burden, that's a positive thing."

Just don't expect it to happen too fast.

Andrew Pacheco, chief counsel of the financial remedies section of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, said there's a hefty lag time between when the cash is seized and when the agency actually gets it. Even at "lightening fast" speed, Pacheco said, the process takes 120 days and often, depending on the amount of litigation, it can take several years.

Once seized, the cash sits in an interest-bearing bank account until the case makes its way through the court system, Pacheco said. If the cash was, in fact, wrongly seized the owner gets it back - plus the interest.

The percentage of cash pocketed by the prosecuting agency - in this case the state Attorney General's office - also depends on how much litigation the case needs, Pacheco said. Typically, though, there's an 80-20 split between the law enforcement agency - such as the NPD - and the AG's office.

Pacheco said his office not only has a long-standing forfeiture program, but also a cadre of 10 or so attorneys dedicated solely to forfeiture cases."We really serve as a resource to the whole state," Pacheco said.

'More hands'

Like the Attorney General's Office, the Santa Cruz County Attorney's Office is in the business of cash forfeitures. The local prosecutorial agency processes all cash seized by the multi-agency Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force.

The Nogales Police Department, which is part of the task force, used to take its money to the county attorney, which controls and divvies up the RICO - Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations - funds, Silva said.

However, since it received the Southern Border Alliance funds, the NPD has started to take the bulk of its money to the state Attorney General.

"We just lost $400,000," Silva said of a recent seizure that's being prosecuted by the Arizona Attorney General. Nogales police officers working the I-19 program late last month stopped a car for a traffic violation and eventually found the cash stashed inside.

Still, Silva said, his biggest concern is prosecuting the smugglers.

"I just want to make sure the Attorney General's office is prosecuting," Silva said. "Losing money, that's part of the deal, but if you send someone to prison, it has more bite."

Despite the loss of some NPD-seized funds, the County Attorney's Office still gets money from cash seizures made at the Nogales ports of entry. When U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizes cash at the border, they refer the case to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI), another federal agency.

ICE HSI has a $150,000 threshold, Silva said, meaning that forfeitures below that amount often get kicked down to the County Attorney's Office.

Larger cases stay with the feds.

For example, in November 2010, a 25-year-old Mexican woman named Judith Angelica Ayala-Partida tried to smuggle more than $900,000 into Mexico through Nogales. Seven months later, she pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court and forfeited the cash.

But in September 2011, when a 40-year-old Mexican woman and her two teenage children were arrested at the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry after a botched attempt to smuggle $100,000 across the border, ICE HSI turned the case over to NPD for local prosecution. (See story on Page 2)

Cash seizures at the ports are down, however. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in late January that it had seized nearly $1.8 billion in suspected drug cash at Arizona's ports since new federal fiscal year began on Oct. 1. That compared with nearly $5 million seized during the same time period a year ago.

The local RICO fund is also lower than usual, Silva said. He estimated that it now holds roughly $60,000, though he added that the amount fluctuates greatly. Sometimes the fund has nothing in it, he said, but there was one point three years ago when it held between $700,000 and $800,000.

And while the state AG generally divides cash seizures on a 20-80 basis with the corresponding law enforcement agency, Silva said his office doesn't take a cut of forfeiture cases and doesn't earmark the funds specifically for the agency that brings them in. Instead, all seized funds go into the same RICO account.

"It's a small community. Everything goes into one pot," he said. "That's the way it was, and it worked."

Nowadays, he said, "More people want to get their hands in the cookie jar." Though he noted the federal government's legitimate claim to money that its law enforcement officers seize."In my perspective, it's great if the money comes to us, but I also understand that the feds need the money," he said.

As for the NPD's I-19 seizures now being processed by the state AG's office, Silva insisted he doesn't mind too much that he's missing out, since he knows the police department is saving up for a new station. "All of that is coming back to our community," he said.